Popular NFT marketplace OpenSea, which has over 1.3 million traders and an all-time volume of $14.68 billion, has seen its valuation increase to $13.3 billion from a valuation of 1.5 billion in July 2021.
The new valuation comes as the number one NFT marketplace was looking to raise $300 million in a new funding round in which was led by Paradigm and Coatue. This cements OpenSea as one of the most valuable private firms in the cryptocurrency industry.
With a current valuation of $13.3 billion, it means OpenSea is more valuable than the likes of AMC Entertainment, Santander Consumer USA Holdings, American Airlines Group and GameStop.
What you should know
OpenSea stated yesterday that investors valued the company at $13.3 billion in the Series C funding round, up sharply from the startup’s $1.5 billion valuation in a $100 million Series B announced last July. The New York Times was first to report the news.
The latest valuation shows how OpenSea has ensconced itself as the leading platform for trading non-fungible tokens. The firm said in a blog post it plans to use the funding for product development, hiring, startup investments and to “significantly improve customer support and customer safety.”
Data from DappRadar reveals that in the last 30 days alone, OpenSea’s digital art collectibles recorded 1.6 million Ethereum transactions and a trading volume of $2.4 billion.
OpenSea’s latest round is another sign of the boom times in crypto venture capital. In 2021 alone, over $30 billion in investments was invested into crypto startups. Bigger valuations have been had in recent months. FTX’s funding round is a good example, in which the crypto exchange was valued at $25 billion.
Conclusion
Although OpenSea might be king of the NFTs, Dapper Labs, the firm behind NBA Top Shot and the Flow blockchain, nabbed a $7.6 billion valuation in September in another round led by Coatue.
It is expected that more venture capital organizations will be investing in the cryptocurrency space in 2022 and there will be special attention, especially towards NFT marketplaces, P2E gaming and metaverse related utilities which all apply a form of NFT in their niche.
